Calypso / Kaiso

History

Calypso grew out of West African kaiso and the masquerade traditions of enslaved Trinidadians, who used satirical song and double entendre to mock plantation masters and one another. By the early 1900s "calypso" had named the Carnival song, sung in tents where chantwells dueled in picong. The 1930s pushed it abroad: in 1934 Roaring Lion and Atilla the Hun became the first calypsonians to record in New York, and Lord Invader's 1943 "Rum and Coca-Cola" became a global hit (controversially, via the Andrews Sisters in 1945). After the war, Lord Kitchener carried calypso to Britain with the Windrush generation, recording "London Is the Place for Me." The 1950s and '60s were the golden age: Mighty Sparrow's 1956 "Jean and Dinah" and his long rivalry with Kitchener defined the art, while Harry Belafonte's 1956 album Calypso ignited a worldwide pop craze. Calypso Rose broke the men's monopoly from the 1960s. By the late 1970s the music birthed soca (Kitchener's 1977 "Sugar Bum Bum" sits at the hinge), and in the 1980s David Rudder modernized the form. Calypso remains the lyrical conscience of Trinidad Carnival, judged each year for its monarchs and Road March.

The sub-genre landscape

The family's center of gravity is the developed Calypso lane itself, the mainline tradition of narrative, witty, Carnival-judged song, with Calypso Pop as its glossy export cousin, the crossover sound that carried "Day-O" and the 1950s craze to international charts. Those two written lanes hold the family's identity: one rooted in the tent and the Savannah, the other in the living room and the pop chart.

Around them sits a ring of more specialized lanes that mostly describe what a calypso is about or where it lives. Kaiso and Traditional Calypso point back to the African-rooted origin and the unadorned acoustic style. Tent Calypso and Carnival Calypso name the performance settings, while Road March Calypso is the up-tempo, repeat-after-me strain built to win the streets. The lyrical-purpose lanes, Political Calypso, Social Commentary Calypso, Satirical Calypso, and Humor Calypso, slice the same body of work by what the singer is doing: indicting a government, reading society, roasting a rival, or simply clowning.

The remaining spin-offs are fusions and offshoots: Calypso Ballad (the slow, romantic register), Calypso Jazz and Calypso Gospel (genre marriages), and Steelpan Calypso (the pan-led instrumental face). Traced through these lanes, the history runs from kaiso origins, through the tent and Road March golden age, out to political and satirical commentary, and onward to the jazz, gospel, and pan hybrids and the pop crossover that globalized the sound.

Sub-genres in this family

15 sub-genres · 2 written up

Defining artists

• Mighty SparrowSpotifyYouTube
• Lord KitchenerSpotifyYouTube
• Roaring LionSpotifyYouTube
• Atilla the HunSpotifyYouTube
• Lord InvaderSpotifyYouTube
• Calypso RoseSpotifyYouTube

Essential listening

• Jean and Dinah(1956) — Mighty SparrowSpotifyYouTube
• Rum and Coca-Cola(1943) — Lord InvaderSpotifyYouTube
• London Is the Place for Me(1951) — Lord KitchenerSpotifyYouTube
• Banana Boat (Day-O)(1956) — Harry BelafonteSpotifyYouTube
• Ugly Woman(1934) — Roaring LionSpotifyYouTube
• Bahia Girl(1986) — David RudderSpotifyYouTube

Sources

• Wikipedia, Calypso music (origins, kaiso etymology, 1934 first overseas recordings, Lord Invader and Rum and Coca-Cola)
• Wikipedia, Mighty Sparrow (Jean and Dinah 1956, Congo Man 1965, career and rivalry with Lord Kitchener)
• Wikipedia, Lord Kitchener (calypsonian) (London Is the Place for Me, Sugar Bum Bum 1977, soca crossover)
• Wikipedia, Calypso (album) and Day-O (The Banana Boat Song) (Harry Belafonte 1956 calypso-pop craze)
• Wikipedia and Lomax Digital Archive on Roaring Lion and Lord Invader (Ugly Woman 1934, Rum and Coca-Cola 1943)
• Caribbean Beat and World Music profiles on Calypso Rose and David Rudder (Fire in Me Wire, Bahia Girl, The Hammer 1986)